Gwetheril receives this letter while in Enedwaith from Wynne, who is reaching out to allies in the region, though it was written some months prior.
To my beloved El,
If all goes well, I shall well proceed this letter—in fact, I doubt much that this letter will ever reach you. Wynne, with characteristic bluntness, told me that she would not consider it worth the hassle of delivering unless I died, in which case no army of orcs would stop her delivering it—to the next town. I of course assured her that I would give my best attempt at the not dying part of things to save her the inconvenience, and because I assume you would be quite miffed at me should I perish. It really would be quite rude of me all around.
I have already been here so much longer than I’d hoped or planned. Yet these people live in constant fear and threats of raids. To make matters worse, despite my attempts at subtlety, I seem to have made several enemies, a fact which will surprise you little. I fear several friends who sheltered me may become a target, and have determined that the situation being as it is, I cannot abandon these people. I cannot write more, for fear of being intercepted, though few here can read and write, and fewer know Sindarin.
Fear, suspicion and treachery seem to be in the air these days, yet though neither Dunlending nor Dúnedain are quick to trust, with Alun of the Caru-luth I have been privileged to fight. Wynne is his daughter—you would like her. She is quick tongued, and quicker still with her bow in the hunt. His children taught me a dance last night, when we rested and sought to think of things more pleasant than rumblings of trouble. Never fear, my love, I shall not show it to you, lest I profane the art of these people with my Northern clumsiness.
"Though all to ruin fell the world
and were dissolved and backward hurled
unmade into the old abyss,
yet were its making good, for this—
the dawn, the dusk, the earth, the sea—
that Lúthien on a time should be!"
I can’t make your name work with the meter, yet you are the story teller not I, so excuse a poor warrior and ranger of the wild.
Love,
Alphdir
